technology
The ART of Technology
John Merritt, YMCA of San Diego County
In every successful recipe there are key ingredients. Too much of one ingredient or too little of another can have very interesting effects on the outcome of the dish. It's no different when it comes to technology.
Business is driven by technology; the days of seeing technology merely as a necessary evil have long passed. Networking technologies allow us to move and access information quickly, we analyze our stored data to make sound decisions, websites & eCommerce focus on bringing convenience to our customers, email systems allow us to communicate around the world in the blink of an eye, we track vehicles via satellite, cell phones keep us in touch -- the list goes on and on.
The recipe for technology contains 3 key ingredients: Alignment, Relationship, and Transparency. Each of these, in balance, can assist in making technology a useful, functional, and invisible tool within our organizations. The ART of technology is not about the PC on your desk or the server in the backroom. The ART of technology is about our interaction with systems, processes and one another as we work toward efficient business operations and fully meeting the mission.
A Reboot for Democracy
When the Framers met in Philadelphia in 1787, they bravely conjured a new form of self-government. But they couldn’t have imagined a mass society with instantaneous, many-to-many communications or many of the other innovations of modernity. So, replacing that quill pen with a mouse, imagine that you have to power to redesign American democracy for the Internet Age. What would you do?
This is the challenge posed by Personal Democracy Forum for its new book project, Rebooting America: Democracy in the 21st Century. It is an anthology of essays from leading thinkers and activists -- check out the impressive list here -- that they will publish to coincide with this year's Personal Democracy Forum conference, June 23-24 in New York City. Folks from the NTEN community are featured in this list, including Alan Rosenblatt, Center for American Progress Action Fund, Craig Newmark, craigslist.org, Nancy Tate, League of Women Voters, Ellen Miller, Executive Director, Sunlight Foundation, and Robert Sherman, Surdna Foundation.
The best part is that they are inviting their readers to submit essays answering how to make America better, stronger, more inclusive, and participatory, and to vote on their favorite essays. Up to three winning essays will be included in the anthology.
